Sunday, 24 August 2014

The Progressive Patriot - Billy Bragg

THE
PROGRESSIVE PATRIOT - BILLY BRAGG

And talking of Billy Bragg....

In 2006 Bragg wrote a book entitled The Progressive Patriot
which was ostensibly a wrestle with the issues of Englishness,
identity and patriotism. Instigated by the sudden fashion for flying
the St George's Cross during the European Football Championships in
2004, Bragg felt there was a need for a discussion about the use of
this flag and what it was actually representing. In his and many
other peoples' eyes it should be said, the English flag and in
particular the Union Jack was a symbol of right-wing, xenophobic
ideology, soaked in the blood of British Empire; flown proudly only
by conservatives at the last night of The Proms or neo-Nazis, racists
and Fascists belonging to any number of Far-Right organizations. The
English flag, be it the Union Jack or the Cross of St George was the
property of the Right and therefore a symbol of everything Bragg was
against. When in May of 2006 the racist British National Party won
seats on the Council of his then home town of Barking in East London,
the need for a debate suddenly became more urgent.

This was never a book that was at the top of my reading list, hence
only eight years later I finally get round to reading it and frankly,
I'm glad I didn't rush out to buy a copy as soon as it hit the shops
because to put it mildly and politely: it's fucking rubbish. Part
biography, part history lesson, part would-be polemic; in the end
it's just a mess of all these things that takes the reader nowhere
apart from up Billy Bragg's arse.

From the start Bragg states his book is an attempt to go beyond the
territories of the Durham Miners Gala and the Tolpuddle Martyrs
Festival and convince the majority that the Left have their interests
at heart. His aim is to 'reconcile patriotism with the radical
tradition' but what he actually means by this is hard to fathom
because what writing there is about 'the radical tradition' is
eclipsed by a never-ending history lesson throughout the book
explaining how we all ended up here in this place called Britain. The
history lesson Bragg conveys, however, is not that of the New Model
Army, the Levellers, the Agitators, the mobs, the riots or the
innumerable acts of dissent and sedition conducted in a bid to move
things forward for the common man but the same history as taught in
schools concerning the lives of Kings and Queens throughout the ages
and the 'noble actions' of the Establishment, be they sanctioned by
royalty or not. Bragg peddles the same history he says he's critical
of and wishes to repudiate, so raising the question of what Bragg
actually means by 'radical'. Which leads on to wondering about Bragg
himself.

When writing of his family's background it's all very charming but
really of no interest to anyone apart from himself and his die-hard
fans. When he writes about his own life and influences such as George
Orwell, Simon and Garfunkel, and The Clash he becomes more animated
and his writing more enthused, particularly when touching upon the
Rock Against Racism carnival of 1978 which he describes as a
life-changing experience.

There are certain events that he neglects to mention, however, that
calls into question the extent of the influence upon him of punk
rock, The Clash, Simon, Garfunkel, Uncle Tom Cobley and all; one
of them being that just three years after his life-changing
experience of witnessing The Clash and his baptism into Left-wing
politics he joined the army. How radical was that? This was in May of
1981, just a month after the Brixton riots when absolutely everything
- including youth culture and punk rock in particular - was being
heavily politicised through the policies of Thatcher in England and
Reagan in the USA.

Four years later in 1985 there was Bragg again urging everyone to
vote for Neil Kinnock - the same Neil Kinnock who had by then not
only back-tracked on his support for unilateral nuclear disarmament
but had spectacularly failed to support the striking miners. Was this
again Bragg's idea of radicalism? It would appear so.

At one point in his book Bragg writes: 'It is a broadly accepted
fact that, over the past fifty years, Britain has become a classless
society'. Really? But if this is what Bragg believes then it
perhaps explains everything about him and his politics. Class has got
little to do with wealth which is why it's perfectly all right if
Bragg moves from his native (working class) Barking, in Essex to a
mansion-type house in a (middle class) village on the Dorset coast.
Fair play to him. It's a bit disturbing, however, when he calls for a
Declaration of Rights for the people of Britain to be drawn up and
seems to have no qualms about who might conduct it. He seems to
believe that such a Declaration would be perfectly safe in the hands
of someone like Neil Kinnock, or perhaps Tony Blair, or even David
Cameron. After all, Britain is now a classless society and the fact
that practically everyone in any position of real power or influence
is Cambridge, Oxbridge or Eton-educated shouldn't make any difference...

It's exasperating when someone like Billy Bragg is held up as a fine
example of how a protest singer should be or when they're put forward
as spokesmen for anything because typically all they point the way to
is moderation, accommodation and ultimately commodification.
Essentially they're nothing more than sops, foils and puppets on
strings who at best can act only as stepping stones to either one of
two things: further action as in whatever form might be suitable for
the listener, even if it's simply reading a book to find out more
about any given subject - or a one-way trip up the singer's arse. He
might well be a nice guy in real life and everything but - based
particularly on this book he's written and any number of his past
endeavours - in the case of Billy Bragg it's unfortunately the
latter.